Thursday, November 09, 2006

RRRRUUUUTTTTGGGGEEEERRRRSSSS!Where Do I Rank 'Em? (How 'Bout No. 2?)

Make no mistake: Rutgers will be the No. 2-ranked team on my Top 25 ballot on Sunday.

(Talking more realistically, someone needs to explain why Rutgers SHOULDN'T replace Louisville at No. 3. If you watched the game, I defy you to pick out a more impressive defensive showing -- particularly given what a juggernaut the L'ville offense is/was -- this season. If Louisville was the third-best team in the country, where do you possibly rank the still-unbeaten team that just beat them, if NOT No. 3? Anything else is complete b.s.)

This confirms that poll voters have been GROSSLY underrating Rutgers -- I'm quite sure because of Rutgers' rep -- by ranking them in the mid- to high teens.

That was one of the most amazing CFB games -- and especially one of the most amazing CFB halves -- I've seen in a long time. Particularly factoring in the stage of the season, the records of the two teams and the national-TV solo spotlight, I'd rank it as the best team performance of the season, ahead of Ohio St beating Texas, Arkansas beating Auburn, Louisville beating West Virginia or Michigan beating Notre Dame.

Consequently, I would like to think that poll voters, self-proclaimed media "experts" and fans will finally believe in the strength and talent of this Rutgers team and accept them -- if they win out, which would include a win over West Virginia -- as a legitimate pick for the BCS title game.

(Hell, given the defense I just saw dominate Louisville's X-Box offense, I'm quite sure that Rutgers would give Ohio State or Michigan a hell of a game. Although given the realities of the BCS formula and what I'm sure will be a continued PC- and human-poll bias against Rutgers that will spike their BCS rankings, I can imagine there are a fair number of happy fans of Florida, Texas, Cal, USC and Auburn. Oh, and people everywhere who hate the BCS.)

My upshot: It's totally fair to join me in jumping on the Rutgers bandwagon and root like crazy for a team that has historically sucked so horribly, but it's totally unfair to continue to hold that legacy against them in the polls or the BCS rankings. I'm so serious: Rutgers as No. 2 (though I'll happily agree with any/all who want to rank them at No. 3), and an utterly worthy BCS title-game team.*

By the way, after tonight I'd put Rutgers RB Ray Rice -- who had 75 yards IN THE FOURTH QUARTER ALONE -- at the TOP of my Heisman list. (Yes, ahead of Troy Smith, who -- let's all admit it -- is given preferential treatment mostly for being the QB on the No. 1 team in the country. But, hey, he's my clear-cut No. 2. So stop griping, OSU fans.)Wow, I'm SO freaking ecstatic about this Rutgers result. Hell, you can't be a college football fan (well, maybe outside of Louisville) and NOT be happy about it. My close college buddy called me just as Rutgers was finishing off their winning drive and said, "Now I know what it must have felt like for the rest of the country to watch Northwestern in 1995." Amen to that. You know I can digest it into my standard catchy slogan:

We're all Rutgers fans.

-- D.S.

* - For now... who knows what will happen when Rutgers plays at West Virginia on Dec. 2 in what could very likely be Rutgers' play-in game for the national title. Think West Virginia isn't going to kill themselves at home trying to play the spoiler? And for the record, the Big East tie-breaker for the league's automatic BCS bowl bid is by highest final BCS ranking.

So what we're looking at is the very real possibility that even if Rutgers climbs up to that deserving No. 3 spot NOW, if they lose at West Virginia on 12/02, we end up with the delightful proposition of having the BCS formula implode while sorting through the remaining BCS-favored one-loss teams to determine an opponent for the winner of the Ohio St-Michigan game. Currently, that list could include any/all of the following: Florida, Texas, USC/Cal winner, USC/Notre Dame winner (if USC beats Cal), Auburn (amazingly, without making the SEC title game), Arkansas and the Ohio St-Michigan loser. Ah, screw it: Just win out, Rutgers!

I wrote for the sports section of the Rutgers newspaper, the Daily Targum. As part of my duties my senior year (2001, Schiano's first season), I had the good fortune to be able to accompany the team to Miami and West Virginia for road games. The results were something like 49-0 and 80-7.

Great, now we have a Rutgers grad jumping on the stupid Jersey mafia bandwagon. THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MORE MAFIA IN NEW YORK CITY THAN THERE EVER WAS IN JERSEY. GANDOLFINI IS AN ACTOR, NOT A REAL MOBSTER.

Very good game, but after watching that game I'll put any amount of money, you name the wage and i'll take it that rutgers would get destroyed by Michigan, Ohio State, Auburn, Flordia, Texas... heck even Notre Dame. I'm talking about a complete blowout not even close.

Come on... even with this win it's still rutgers. I think it all be guaranteed that a 1 loss time will be in the BCS Championship game.

Dan, I love you but you are crazy. Rutgers, L'ville and WVU are all overrated and couldnt compete with a big ten team like osu or michigan. they will play and should play again in the title game cause they are obviously the best 2 teams in the nation.

If Arkansas wins the SEC, they definitely should get the nod over Auburn (based on 1 loss apiece and head-to-head). If Arkansas doesn't, the resulting computer drop for Arkansas would hurt Auburn as well.

Auburn's best chance (without going to the SEC Championship game) is for Arkansas to lose once more, and then win the SEC Championship.

Dude, WVU was going to go all the way. So we told you a Louisville team with a passable offense would score 40 on them. They did.

So then you said Louisville was going to go all the way. We said put down whatever you are smoking, that team just looked good because West Virginia has absolutely no defense.

So Louisville loses to Rutgers, and all of a sudden Rutgers has a defense more dominating than Michigan? Because in your weird, pathetic dream Louisville would put up 50 on Michigan?

So go Rutgers, but here are some stats for you: 21-16 (their game against North Carolina) and 22-20 (their game against South Florida). Rutgers' most impressive win this year was NAVY until today. And when Rutgers plays WVU they won't even be favored.

I am telling you all, it is 96 all over again. WVU beats rutgers. UF runs the table. We destroy the UM/OSU winner.

That was a really fun game to watch. I have a friend who is a rutgers alum who has been telling me how great they have been for the last ten yrs. Sire she is crazy but she is right this year. I can see them being a solid #3. At least til they play WVU.

You seem to be forgetting that the Navy win was 34-0, and we beat Illinois 33-0, and we just shut out the best offense in the country in the second half (and really except for a couple big plays, dominated most of the game).

Yes, I'm a Rutgers grad. But they have earned the right to play-in for the championship game vs. West Virginia on 12/2. If Rutgers was Oregon, Nebraska, Iowa, or some other mid-level team from any other conference, they'd be #3.

Anyway, if the Orange Bowl is the worst we do... it's still beyond my wildest dreams.

Dan is just being cheeky (mostly. I think.). If you've been reading all week/month, he keeps dropping Michigan to #3, accepting any logic possible for such a drop. It's dumb, but since the polls and BCS might as well look like a tournament chart right now (with [OSU/UM winner] penciled in at #1 until we learn who that is), it doesn't really matter (I'm assuming UM jumps RU in his crazy little brain-poll w/ a win at Columbus).And many may disagree, but if what Dan wants is Rutgers at #2 regardless of the UM/OSU winner, then he might as well stick them up there already as a placeholder. I guess.Even though it's crazy.

OK, so... holy crap. Not holy crap that Rutgers won, but holy crap they looked great. If you chalk up the first quarter to nerves, then Rut was easily better than Louisville. By a lot. The running game is scary (Arkansas-esque, if you wll) and the defense is swarming. I'm pretty sure--right now--Rut would beat UF on a neutral field. They impressed me that much.

Nice win for Rutgers, but if they win-out and reach the desert, they'll get totally schmotzied by OSU/UM. It'll be one of those crappy championship games where they regress to the mean.

As much as an OSU fan I am, why don't we go for total BCS anarchy here? Let's have OSU lose to NU this weekend then crush UM next week. Then WVU beats Rutgers and what we have is a bunch of one-loss teams. Now how about them apples?

It was a nice win for Rutgers and all. But really they aren't anything more than a good story. They would get smoked by OSU, Michigan, probably Wisconsin, a number of SEC schools, USC, Notre Dame and probably a few others I am leaving out.

How about the kicker, Ito, nailing the game-winner, then absolutely flattening (and getting flattened by) the kick returned for Louisville on the ensuing kickoff? He saved the TD and saved us all from watching a bunch of Jersey guys riot on the field if Louisville had returned that kick to end it.

By the way - why didn't Rutgers just employ the 'ol Wisconsin "Oops - we were offsides on the kickoff? Gee, let's kick again - we promise to get it right next time..." move to run out the final :23ish after kicking the field goal? Just run offsides, squib the ball, and kill the clock.

all you big 10 guys who discount the efforts of all the other really good college football teams out there, just shut it. OSU and Michigan, OSU and Michigan, blah-fucking-blah... There was noone in the Big10 to give them a real run at an upset all yr. The wins over UT and ND are impressive, but it hardly substantiates the claim that therefore they'd crush any other team. They play each other, we'll see who is the best between 'em, and then let them go to two different bowl games, and play the champs of two different conferences, and if they both blowout the teams they are playing, then, yeah, maybe they are the two best teams in the country.

Rutgers, LV, WVU are all on scholarship too, and any of them could give a game against your supposed upper echelon. And the SEC big-boys, and a much improved Texas team, USC, Oklahoma - any of them would give a decent game against your teams, and given the ball bouncing the right way, they could win. Maybe they don't have quite as much NFL ready talent, maybe they do, but they could win, and then you whiny bitches would complain about bad breaks or bad calls.

"By the way - why didn't Rutgers just employ the 'ol Wisconsin "Oops - we were offsides on the kickoff? Gee, let's kick again - we promise to get it right next time..." move to run out the final :23ish after kicking the field goal? Just run offsides, squib the ball, and kill the clock."

Because then Louisville would decline the penalty on the offsides. Wisconsin didn't force the clock to run down, the opponent allowed it to (after a horrible runback) by not declining the penalty.

Does anyone really KNOW if Dan was fired? Because looking from the outside, I'm much rather write my own columns on blogger and rake in the Google Ads dollars than punch a clock at the Worldwide Leader and wake up at 6am for morning chats 5 days a week.

chrth...no qb has ever schooled another qb, they don't play against each other. Smith is now getting all the hype that Brady Quinn had... best qb on a top team. Smith is a COLLEGE QB with very little pro future as a qb.

Now I'm not a big fan of Texas, but love controversy. Would Texas be ahead of Florida in the BCS is the Pac 10 officials didn't screw Oklahoma? If Florida and Texas win out, I want to see what the numbers would be if Oklahoma won that game.

Okay Dan, How exactly do you feel about Boise State then? They have been in the top 25 for about three years now, which would mean they have "paid their dues" and can be ranked high in the BCS just like WVU was this year. Nice game by Rutgers, but it doesn't mean they can just launch into a #3 ranking! That is just laughable. Has anybody ever thought that if the whole conference is over-rated then every win against them is over-rated. If I was a school in the Big 11 or SEC I would jump to sign up to play these Big Least teams and get a "quality win" Think about it, play a less than quality team that counts as a big win in the computers. It is like beating the system. Finally if the BSC is all about money, why would they ever rank Rutgers up there anyway, nobody in NY even knows they exist and the R is a pretty small market team.

my freshman year Rutgers was 0-11 and it hurt deep. Sweet redemption last night, even sweeter rushing the field as an alum who can still jump down 8 feet off a fence. To the naysayers, Louisville has one of the most prolific offenses in the nation (in par with Ohio State and Michigan). Rutgers D has an SEC flair to it as well. If Teel can play smart and we let the running combo of Rice and Leonard do their thing, we are arguably in the top 5. We win out and let the one-loss teams kill each other, and we're in the running. Dan, i wish you programmed the BCS computers.

@ chrth:"Because then Louisville would decline the penalty on the offsides. Wisconsin didn't force the clock to run down, the opponent allowed it to (after a horrible runback) by not declining the penalty."

Thought penalties on the kicking team on a kickoff couldn't be declined? I mean, Wisco did it twice before finally launching a normal kickoff. And considering it was JoePa and Penn State on the other sideline, I would assume (perhaps incorrectly) that he would know the rule and decline the penalty.

Didn't end up mattering anyway, but just imagin if that kid takes another one back 100+ yards?

"also i find the Rice thing like Woah! he had a bunch of yards on Louisville's run D??? When has that happend before???"

- I knew last night that someone would say Rice only looked impressive because of the Cards D being weak. One problem, Rice is the third leading rusher in the NCAA. Besides, anybody watching that game realized just how talented and dominate that kid is - I'm with DS on this guy!!!

... since when has that logic ever been used by anyone except D.S. for ranking teams? Ever?

It's not "just put some teams in order, leave out the situations which will sort themselves out later on." Ask Oregon State if you don't need to worry about where a team is ranked, since they'll get their due after beating a top-3 team. (I know that's a ridiculous comparison, but the point is, your logic is... all I can come up with is, cancerous.)

"face it"? Sorry, boss. Your point is far too nonsensical to use a tone like that.

Besides, what in the blue fuck do you want from me? I had just admitted that Dan's logic was excusable (i was excusing it, anyway), though stupid.

Also, your math is spectacular. UL beat the old #3... so they should be... #2. Just like Michigan should have been #1 after beating the old #2 (I'm not griping about Michigan's ranking throughout the season, I'm pointing out how stupid your argument is). How could you act like a team should jump the team ranked above the team they beat? What kind of system is this?

If you watched the WVU game last week as well, you know how Louisville loves to let RBs right through. Similarly, Rice is the third-leading rusher, [having played a bunch of Big East teams].

I'm half-sold on Rice, I was impressed with the guy, but I think if you put (say) Mike Hart, even with Rutgers' line in front of him, against UL, he runs for 131 or more, too.

But, I mean, this was a very big, very clutch performance. I don't want to take too much away from Rice, but I think Heisman frontrunner is pushing it (unless you're factoring in the inertia/team-not-individual points that are keeping Smith and Quinn at the top right now. In which case, sure, why not let somebody else have a turn at the top, since nobody is really going out there and taking it?).

The thing about playing in a real conference is that every team can give you a run at an upset. Maybe most Big Ten teams are out of the Top 25, but few of them belong outside of the Top, say, 50.

If you can have a bad week, and have a hard time putting away, say, East Carolina in Week 4, or Cincy in Week 7, or UConn in Week 10, it's to your great disadvantage to play 8 or 9 games per year against teams that can each beat you, if you have a real bad day against them. (Don't even mention Ball State, either.)

And I contend that almost all of the Big Ten teams can say that (especially, um, Wisconsin?). No, they're not beating everybody week in and week out (would be impossible for all of them to do so, anyway), but they are certainly able to give good teams a run at an upset any given Saturday, which is what you were complaining about anyway.In the College Football season, the challenge is to prove that you're consistent. If you want it to mean anything, it ought to be mostly against teams that can beat good teams at least once in a while.

I too am hoping for Rutgers to win out and not just b/c I grew up in NJ and have lots of friends who went to RU and suffered through a generation of awful sports. I think it'd be great if Rutgers was 12-0 and yet only about 6th in the BCS, which is where I think they'd be. No way they'll jump ahead of the SEC one-lossers, etc. I'm not even ready to make the argument that Rutgers deserves to be compared to teams like Florida, Auburn, Michigan, OSU, etc.... but if you run the table is a supposed BCS conference, you deserve a shot.

John of Ann Arbor,my complaint is with anyone who thinks UMich and OhioSU are so good that not only should they be ranked 1 and 2 now, they should be that way after the 18th, and who discount the fact that other conferences may in fact be just as tough, if not tougher than the Big10. I hear your argument that a good conference should have teams that are capable of upsetting the top-tier teams, which is the same as my argument. The Big10 is down this year, though. It is impossible to tell if OSU and Michigan would both be undefeated headed into the Nov 18 matchup if they played in the SEC (I frankly don't believe they would).

At any rate, they are two good teams, but I get pissed off by fans of theirs who don't think that there are good teams in the other conferences.

This is the best year for Big East football ever (including back in the day when VaTech and Miami were actually in the conference and doing well). But everyone is beating up on them, and saying they don't deserve it, but I swear to F'en god, if they were named Miami or VaTech, there would not be the same problem. So I say, good riddance to the hurricanes and Hokies, and we're developing new versions of good football programs, and they're in the shitty ACC, which is the conference people should be beating up on this year. If Rutgers finished undefeated, they should be afforded the same measure of respect as if they were the hurricanes (back when they were marauding through an even worse Big East) or the sooners or cornhuskers (back when they were playing one tough game a year as a bonafide play-in game to the Orange Bowl in what was, more often than any other bowl, a de facto natl chamionship game). The current system is better, but if Rutgers doesn't get in, it sucks. I'm with chrth, I want an all-scarlet NCS if Rutgers wins out (which I am on record as saying I don't think they will, because I think WVU beats them, but that shouldn't diminish the fact that this season has shown that Big East Football is back, better than ever!).

Totally with you about the deafening OSU-Michigan noise, but to say nobody in the conference gave them legit upset threats just isn't right.

Two losses are still two losses for Penn State, but our 1st-year QB has his head out of his behind against the Bucks (in their house) and that 14-6 score wouldn't have been 28-6. Horseshoes and hand grenades aside, taking Michigan deep into the 4th quarter, having to rely on a 3rd string QB due to U of M's very impressive D, also belies your theory.

Trust me, I know it's tough living with Cowher's apparent decision to toughen up Roethlisberger with some Ls in his column, but try not to let it cloud your judgment.

I think we're all missing the important point here: my ASU Sun Devils are the last team to defeat Rutgers, so ASU obviously must be ranked ahead of Rutgers. Oh wait, that's right, we suck this year. Oh well. We can still cling to our claim of being the last team to beat Rutgers (as weird as that sounds to be a good thing).

I agree with your points that obviously Louisville has a weak D and Rice is also puttin these numbers up against the Big East and obviously we all can't agree what that means. But my point is you can tell what a stud player he is by watching him play. Everyone could see how good Tomlinson was when he was at TCU despite the inferior talent he was playing against.

Basically, I just wanted to give Rice props and I think he deserves to be in the top 3 roght now in the Heisman race and could steal it with a big performance in a win vs WV. People do get bored of a one-man race and I think voters could get excited and vote for a late run by a great athlete who performs big in late games (see Charles Woodson coming late to beat Peyton).

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.